Croatan's run comes up short in state wrestling final

All nine of West Lincoln's wins came by pins. Croatan did not have a pin in its five wins.

Rick Scoppe Daily News Staff jdnsports

GREENSBORO – Croatan wrestlers came up short Saturday of completing mission improbable.

With coach David Perry having to replace the bulk of his starters from last year, this season’s prospects at the start seemed uncertain at best.

And on Saturday afternoon West Lincoln proved to be the best, downing the Cougars 54-16 to claim the NCHSAA 2-A dual team championship at the Greensboro Coliseum Fieldhouse.

It was the eighth trip to the finals for Croatan since the school opened in 1999, with the last coming four years ago also against West Lincoln, which won that day 49-19.

“I’m happy. You never want to finish second. You make it this far you want to win it,” Perry said. “But I didn’t envision this group being experienced enough to come to the state finals. This year we knew we were really young. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year for us and we made it to the state finals.”

The two teams may meet again in the finals before it’s over with given their youth. The Rebels, who finish 26-4, had nine freshmen or sophomores among the 14 weight classes while Croatan, which winds up 13-3, had eight.

“Both are young, both teams came out fighting,” said West Lincoln coach Butch Ross, who is close friends with Perry. “When you wrestle a Dave Perry team those kids are going to fight to the end.”

The match started at 138 pounds, which left Ross all smiles.

“That helped,” he said. “When they drew 138, I was tickled.”

First up for West Lincoln was senior Keaton Norman (36-2), who was named the finals MVP. Norman, who finished third in the state a year ago at 132, took just 21 seconds to give the Rebels a 6-0 lead out of the gate.

Croatan junior Justin Jolin’s 11-3 major decision at 145 cut the deficit to 6-4, but three straight first-period pins pushed West Lincoln’s lead to 24-4.

But the Cougars tried to rally.

Walker Gladwell at 182, Kyle Kort at 195 and Tyger Hall at 220 all won by decisions, but each had a shot at a major decision – four points instead of three – but came up short.

And then heavyweight Nathan Waltrip won 4-2 in double overtime to cut the lead to 24-16.

At that point, the Cougars had won five of nine weight classes but trailed because the Rebels had claimed pins and not decisions. All nine of West Lincoln's wins came by pins. Croatan did not have a pin in its five wins and only had one bonus point for a major decision.

“When you don’t get bonus points and they get that many,” Perry said as his voice trailed off. “We win five, they win nine (overall), so you figure the score’s going to be 38-20 or something. But it’s 54-16.”

Croatan didn’t win another match after Waltrip’s OT victory as West Lincoln won the final five weight classes with five pins, two in the first period and two in the second.

“We kind of based our game plan around bumping up,” Perry said. “It was kind of the only chance we feel like we had because we knew how good they were down low. We knew we could get wins up high. Then Craig (Sanford at 170) and Sean (O’Connell) at 160 we decided to roll the dice and try to get two wins. And their two kids stepped up (with first-period pins). When we lost those we were in trouble.”

The Rebels may have won this Thursday night with its 35-28 win over Foard, which was 34-0 and had beaten West Lincoln 46-27 in late December.

Few gave the Rebels a chance in the rematch.

“Everybody thought they were coming out and we beat them,” Ross said. “We come back (after losing to Foard earlier) and I went over it and my boy said, ‘We can win this thing.’ I said, ‘Yes, sir, you can.’”

And they did.

Perry said he could tell the Rebels were confident in the wake of the win over Foard.

“All year Foard was the team,” he said. “Foard was so much the team that people had already written them in, they’re going to win. … One, they (the Rebels) got a lot better and, two, when they beat Foard they said, ‘We’re going to get it now.’

“And they did. They came after it.”

Still, Perry agreed it was a heck of a season for the Cougars.

“To have at one point in the middle of the season we were wrestling 10 freshmen and sophomores out of 14 weight classes,” he said. “So to have that many kids coming back and to make it to the state finals, it was a great year.”